My local pc shop is stuck on S775. Whenever I go in there for something I can hear all the guys in the back watching youtube videos containing i7's and the sound of ham being used to drive nails is usually what sends me out running.

I once went in there with 2x2gb of DRR3 and asked if he would take it in trade for a 1GB stick of 667 or 2x512 (I was in a bind and other pc shops in the past always traded with me) and he told me he wasn't sure what the DDR3 should be used with... I uh'd

my local pc shop is stuck on s775. Whenever i go in there for something i can hear all the guys in the back watching youtube videos containing i7's and the sound of ham being used to drive nails is usually what sends me out running.

I once went in there with 2x2gb of drr3 and asked if he would take it in trade for a 1gb stick of 667 or 2x512 (i was in a bind and other pc shops in the past always traded with me) and he told me he wasn't sure what the ddr3 should be used with... I uh'd

one thing you gotta learn....is to learn about computers yourself before trusting what shops say. Some are good but take even Geeksquad. Sent them a computer my friends mom sent in b4 i cld touch it, got it back with them saying the mobo was dead. I took out on 8800Ultra(was in SLI) and put the bottom on in the top PCI-E slot and walla...computer works.

The only component in terms of "wear and tear" by formatting is the hard drive.

The most substantial study of HDD failures I know of, Google's Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population shows that yes, HDD utilization does impact the life of hard drives (read under Utilization starting on page 4 of the study)—the impact is not as simple as you might think, so read for more info.

I can think of very few circumstances under which I'd recommend performing a full format (not a "quick format") every two months.

Even a low-level format is simply a rearrangement of the magnetic tracks. Yes, there is a limited number of times, but I doubt you can reach that limit while constantly formatting for the rest of your life.

Even a low-level format is simply a rearrangement of the magnetic tracks. Yes, there is a limited number of times, but I doubt you can reach that limit while constantly formatting for the rest of your life.

Click to expand...

Again, completely untrue. There's no such thing as a "low level" format anymore. That hasn't existed since MFM hard drives. When people speak of a low level format nowadays, they are simply referring to the process of writing zeros or "zero filling" the entire drive, which isn't any more strenous on a drive than anything else.

Again, completely untrue. There's no such thing as a "low level" format anymore. That hasn't existed since MFM hard drives. When people speak of a low level format nowadays, they are simply referring to the process of writing zeros or "zero filling" the entire drive, which isn't any more strenous on a drive than anything else.

Click to expand...

There is nothing untrue about my statement. The magnetic tracks are being rearranged, just like any writing operations.

LLF (low level formatting) is still done—but at the factory. Utilities exist allowing end users to perform low level formats as well, though it is sometimes not possible to do so outside of the factory.

Because I hate it when people use my "reformatting every 2 months" as a reasonfor my pc to break.

Click to expand...

I'll just throw this out there as a reason why people might say that: Full formatting also does error checking, so formatting often might show the existence of problems that you otherwise might not see for a while, so it might LOOK like the formatting is causing the error.

Really, though, you might want to ask yourself why you're formatting every 2 months. I haven't reformatted this machine for almost 4 years.